Breaking: (potential) New Duke Football Head Coach...

Ben bird Bull City coordinators who joined us uh after Mike Elco left we uh we we wondered if Mike Elco was uh biting off more than he could you down at Texas A&M uh all right sir is Manny Diaz if if this ultimately comes to fruition are you on board with this thanks Adam for having me back on I appreciate it uh as far as am I on board with this abs absolutely and I would just caution like you did already we don't want another repeat of the gas Barilla Bowl situation so wait till it's official uh however I would note that Pete taml is the one who is reporting a lot about this and he is also the one who reported on Elco that got a lot of that going so I think there's a reason to trust that but I think that that if this happens this is a is a big hire and I and and a good one and I'm happy to explain my thoughts on that please please do first of all maybe Pete thill is the one who updated Manny Diaz's Wikipedia page because anybody can go in and update it that's that's true it could it could be I mean you got to self-promote right uh so so that's good but there's two two reasons for that that I think that it's it's a it's a big hire the first is he has ties to coach fely who is the uh either athletic performance or strength conditioning coach whatever term you want to use that's big because Elco said the most important and I'm paraphrasing hire he made at Duke was fely and the students they love fely they love coach FY I mean he is he is a big part of the reason for Duke's success over the last two years all right let me just give people context David fely is uh his title associate director of sports performance director of football sports performance strength and conditioning and all of that that goes into it so people know who we're talking about exactly and that's that's that's a long way to say what we used to call strength and conditioning right right so I I will say this this would be another reason that I that this is a good hire and it shows that Duke is a good program that is on the rise okay look at the three hires since 2007 when David cutcliffe came on board David cutcliffe respect offensive coordinator prior head coaching experience with proven results from the SEC right Mike Elco well-respected defensive coordinator proven results in the SEC and now you're getting someone to come from Penn State and the Big 10 which is allegedly a good football conference but whatever we can save that for another day right that's a big higher and that's three big names and and and Diaz had a good run at Miami I know people might not think that but that last team he had where they really beat the wheels off of the Blue Devils I mean just took them apart and then he gets to let go after that that team was real close to 10 wins go back and look at the box scores from That season I'm just saying three bowl games three years he inherited a mess at Miami and they haven't quite climbed out of that yet that could be a real big hire for Duke well see I don't I don't disagree with that uh of of Diaz I I'm I'm sketchy on the detail sales you you may have dug into these a lot more than uh than I have you definitely have I'm sure um but there like managing games was not always a great strong suit but he was also uh that was the first time for him so and to me that job is probably too much for somebody as a firsttime hire there's too many things too many politicians uh and I'm not talking about it in the politics sense but there is so much around that program uh there's way too much to deal with for a firsttime head coach although I guess technically it was a second time head coach because he had taken the temple job two weeks prior to going back to Miami uh but his his Acumen and his resume as a defensive coordinator in like tons of leagues whether it's small at Middle Tennessee uh or big at Mississippi State even Texas he worked for Mack Brown I think Mack thinks very highly of him maybe that's not a good thing I don't no idea uh we can make jokes about it all day long but uh he certainly comes with a with a pretty extensive job history that's correct and I was it was funny you mentioned Wikipedia that page is all blown up with edits right now so it's it's hard to hard to make sense of but you know he's got ties to the ACC he was at Florida State he was at NC State he was at Miami and he is a fairly young guy and I guarantee you he has learned a heck of a lot from being at Penn State and reflecting on that that coaching job and I think we would all agree that David cutcliffe was better in round two after his experience with at Old Miss so as far as who's out there you could go with the young upand Comer we talked about that previously but I am certain there were other schools that wanted to get Manny Diaz and I think this says a lot about where Duke is and where it's going now next year could be rough we probably don't have enough time to talk about the roster and the portal but he's going to come in with ties to a lot of different coaching trees to be able to probably put a really good staff together all right let me ask you very quickly because I did want to ask you about the roster Ben bird from Bull City coordinators is joining us here uh on the Adam Gold show so final thing on this you uh you had told us couple of weeks ago that the the the portal was not going to be kind to the Blue Devils and we know what has happened Riley Leonard's going to end up at Notre Dame it looks like uh and a lot of different players have already uh exited out the door um I my guess is that that will likely continue U but it's also got to go the other way last year uh Mike Elco basically was a net positive uh and a lot of people probably were surprised at that uh what is your sense of what the roster is going to look like really before we even get to the portal uh what do you think Duke will have inhouse for Manny Diaz if it is in fact Manny Diaz well that's that's a really good question and I'm hoping it's going to grind to a halt because there have been guys on the dline who were leaving Jamon Franklin's going to declare for the NFL draft although he is going to play in the Birmingham ball Dorian mayi the linebacker he's leaving anas people uh peil has ENT entered excuse me the portal and that's uh man if he goes to Florida State I don't know if I'm going to be able to intellectually process that and then the top two running backs in Jordan Waters and jaquez Moore are also leaving however Elco in herited kind of a similar situation where nobody really knew what you were going to get and you know a guy with the name recognition of Diaz and TI to places can probably bring in some folks so you know it may be next year is kind of a restructuring reorganization year and then we'll see you know in another uh another year or two where the team gets but you I will add this there's two pretty good quarterbacks on the roster there who are going to be there in lus and bean so I I wouldn't quite say it's the time to panic but there is time for uncertainty H what about RJ Obin honestly I've been trying to keep up with this I think he might be gone as well he he entered the portal as well yeah that that that is a significant loss that's a significant loss he he as I'm sure you're aware he really made a lot of plays and that's their whole defense made a lot of plays if you played defense for Duke last year you made plays that was what they did uh it was remarkable I saw it against the Clemson game against Clemson in the open I'm like wait a second that ain't a good defense that's good for Duke that's a defense that's good for anybody any team put that defense on the field we would be talking about it that's what that's what really stunned me about that game is that it didn't look like a Duke defense it looked like a I mean a top college football defense and I don't mean that to be disparaging uh there was speed and physicality and aggression all over the field uh like and but that's Manny Diaz's specialty so he is a defensive guy to the Corey started out as a DB back DB coach under Chuck Amato at NC State he is familiar with the 919 area code Ben bird Bull City coordinators I appreciate your time uh thanks so much especially on short notice people have no idea how short notice this was uh so uh good luck I hope it does come out uh if you're if if if you are on board with it I'll take your word for it like I said my my way of passing the blame on you Ben said it was a good idea Ben said it was a good well I'm fine with the hire I'll say that but let's wait till it's official and Adam thank you so much for having me back on you got it Ben bird here Bull City coordinators here uh Duke FB coverage by the way on uh on Twitter um I'm torn between what I saw from Manny as a head coach and that Miami situation is so difficult to manage forget about the games managing everything that goes on around Miami and maybe that's what makes it so much more difficult uh but to be honest man um if Duke could get name recognition somebody with a history of at least coordinating good defenses and then he goes out and he gets an offensive mind to run their offense maybe that's what has to happen he is a young guy and um he is familiar with the area he spent he was a big part of Chuck Amato's staff here at NC State